I had titled my talk โGenetic Precursors to Autism Spectrum Disordersโ and sourced some excellent diagrams of DNA structures. I had only been speaking for nine minutes, a little faster than usual to recover time, when Julie interrupted.
โProfessor Tillman. Most of us here are not scientists, so you may need to be a little less technical.โย ๎is sort of thing is incredibly annoying. People can tell you the supposed characteristics of a Gemini or a Taurus and will spend ๏ฌve days watching a cricket match but cannot ๏ฌnd the interest or the time to learn the basics of what they, as humans, are made up of.
I continued with my presentation as I had prepared it. It was too late to change and surely some of the audience were informed enough to understand.
I was right. A hand went up, a male of about twelve.
โYou are saying that it is unlikely that there is a single genetic marker, but rather that several genes are implicated and the aggregate expression depends on the speci๏ฌc combination. A๏ฌrmative?โ
Exactly! โPlus environmental factors.ย ๎e situation is analogous to bipolar disorder, whichโโ
Julie interrupted again. โSo, for us nongeniuses, I think Professor Tillman is reminding us that Aspergerโs is something youโre born with. Itโs nobodyโs fault.โ
I was horri๏ฌed by the use of the wordย fault, with its negative connotations, especially as it was being employed by someone in authority. I abandoned my decision not to deviate from the genetic issues.ย ๎e matter had doubtless been brewing in my unconscious, and the volume of my voice may have increased as a result.
โFault! Aspergerโs isnโt a fault. Itโs a variant. Itโs potentially a major advantage. Aspergerโs syndrome is associated with organization, focus, innovative thinking, and rational detachment.โ
A woman at the rear of the room raised her hand. I was focused on the argument now and made a minor social error, which I quickly corrected.
โ๎e fat womanโoverweightย womanโat the back?โ
She paused and looked around the room, but then continued, โRational detachment: is that a euphemism for lack of emotion?โ
โSynonym,โ I replied. โEmotions can cause major problems.โ
I decided it would be helpful to provide an example, drawing on a story in which emotional behavior would have led to disastrous consequences.
โImagine,โ I said, โyouโre hiding in a basement.ย ๎e enemy is searching for you and your friends. Everyone has to keep totally quiet, but your baby is crying.โ I did an impression, as Gene would, to make the story more convincing: โWaaaaa.โ I paused dramatically. โYou have a gun.โ
Hands went up everywhere.
Julie jumped to her feet as I continued. โWith a silencer.ย ๎eyโre coming closer.ย ๎eyโre going to kill you all. What do you do?ย ๎e babyโs screaming
โโ
๎e kids couldnโt wait to share their answer. One called out, โShoot the baby,โ and soon they were all shouting, โShoot the baby, shoot the baby.โ
๎e boy who had asked the genetics question called out, โShoot theย enemy,โ and then another said, โAmbush them.โ
๎e suggestions were coming rapidly. โUse the baby as bait.โ
โHow many guns do we have?โ โCover its mouth.โ
โHow long can it live without air?โ
As I had expected, all the ideas came from the Aspergerโs โsu๏ฌerers.โย ๎e parents made no constructive suggestions; some even tried to suppress their childrenโs creativity.
I raised my hands. โTimeโs up. Excellent work. All the rational solutions came from the aspies. Everyone else was incapacitated by emotion.โ
One boy called out, โAspies rule!โ I had noted this abbreviation in the literature, but it appeared to be new to the children.ย ๎ey seemed to like it and soon were standing on the chairs and then the desks, punching the air and chanting, โAspies rule!โ in chorus. According to my reading, children
with Aspergerโs syndrome frequently lack self-con๏ฌdence in social situations.ย ๎eir success in problem solving seemed to have provided a temporary cure for this, but again their parents were failing to provide positive feedback, shouting at them and in some cases attempting to pull them down from the desks. Apparently they were more concerned with adherence to social convention than with the progress their children were making.
I felt I had made my point e๏ฌectively, and Julie did not think we needed to continue with the genetics.ย ๎e parents appeared to be re๏ฌecting on what their children had learned and left without interacting with me further. It was only 7:43 p.m. An excellent outcome.
As I packed up my laptop, Julie burst out laughing. โOh my God,โ she said. โI need a drink.โ
I was not sure why she was sharing this information with someone she had known for only forty-six minutes. I planned to consume some alcohol myself when I arrived home but saw no reason to inform Julie.
She continued, โYou know, we never use that word. Aspies. We donโt want them thinking itโs some sort of club.โ More negative implications from someone who was presumably paid to assist and encourage.
โLike homosexuality?โ I said.
โTouchรฉ,โ said Julie. โBut itโs di๏ฌerent. If they donโt change, theyโre not going to have real relationships; theyโll never have partners.โย ๎is was a reasonable argument, and one that I could understand, given my own di๏ฌculties in that sphere. But Julie changed the subject. โBut youโre saying there are thingsโuseful thingsโthey can do better than . . . nonaspies? Besides killing babies.โ
โOf course.โ I wondered why someone involved in the education of people with uncommon attributes was not aware of the value of and market for such attributes. โ๎ereโs a company in Denmark that recruits aspies for computer applications testing.โ
โI didnโt know that,โ said Julie. โYouโre really giving me a di๏ฌerent perspective.โ She looked at me for a few moments. โDo you have time for a drink?โ And then she put her hand on my shoulder.
I ๏ฌinched automatically. De๏ฌnitely inappropriate contact. If I had done that to a woman, there would almost certainly have been a problem, possibly a sexual harassment complaint to the Dean, which could have
consequences for my career. Of course, no one was going to criticizeย herย for it.
โUnfortunately, I have other activities scheduled.โ โNo ๏ฌexibility?โ
โDe๏ฌnitely not.โ Having succeeded in recovering lost time, I was not about to throw my life into chaos again.
โข โข โข
Before I met Gene and Claudia I had two other friends.ย ๎e ๏ฌrst was my older sister. Although she was a mathematics teacher, she had little interest in advances in the ๏ฌeld. However, she lived nearby and would visit twice weekly and sometimes randomly. We would eat together and discuss trivia, such as events in the lives of our relatives and social interactions with our colleagues. Once a month, we drove to Shepparton for Sunday dinner with our parents and brother. She was single, probably as a result of being shy and not conventionally attractive. Due to gross and inexcusable medical incompetence, she is now dead.
๎e second friend was Daphne, whose friendship period also overlapped with Gene and Claudiaโs. She moved into the apartment above mine after her husband entered a nursing home as a result of dementia. Due to knee failure, exacerbated by obesity, she was unable to walk more than a few steps, but she was highly intelligent and I began to visit her regularly. She had no formal quali๏ฌcations, having performed a traditional female homemaker role. I considered this to be an extreme waste of talentโ particularly as her descendants did not return the care. She was curious about my work, and we initiated the Teach Daphne Genetics Project, which was fascinating for both of us.
She began eating her dinner in my apartment on a regular basis, as there are massive economies of scale in cooking one meal for two people rather than two separate meals. Each Sunday at 3:00 p.m. we would visit her husband at the nursing home, which was 7.3 kilometers away. I was able to combine a 14.6-kilometer walk pushing a wheelchair with interesting conversation about genetics. I would read while she spoke to her husband, whose level of comprehension was di๏ฌcult to determine but de๏ฌnitely low.
Daphne had been named after the plant that was ๏ฌowering at the time of her birth, on the twenty-eighth of August. On each birthday, her husband would give her daphne ๏ฌowers, and she considered this a highly romantic
action. She complained that her approaching birthday would be the ๏ฌrst occasion in ๏ฌfty-six years on which this symbolic act would not be performed.ย ๎e solution was obvious, and when I wheeled her to my apartment for dinner on her seventy-eighth birthday, I had purchased a quantity of the ๏ฌowers to give her.
She recognized the smell immediately and began crying. I thought I had made a terrible error, but she explained that her tears were a symptom of happiness. She was also impressed by the chocolate cake that I had made, but not to the same extent.
During the meal, she made an incredible statement: โDon, you would make someone a wonderful husband.โ
๎is was so contrary to my experiences of being rejected by women that I was temporarily stunned.ย ๎en I presented her with the factsโthe history of my attempts to ๏ฌnd a partner, beginning with my assumption as a child that I would grow up and get married, and ๏ฌnishing with my abandonment of the idea as the evidence grew that I was unsuitable.
Her argument was simple: thereโs someone for everyone. Statistically, she was almost certainly correct. Unfortunately, the probability that I would ๏ฌnd such a person was vanishingly small. But it created a disturbance in my brain, like a mathematical problem that we know must have a solution.
For her next two birthdays, we repeated the ๏ฌower ritual.ย ๎e results were not as dramatic as the ๏ฌrst time, but I also purchased gifts for herโ books on geneticsโand she seemed very happy. She told me that her birthday had always been her favorite day of the year. I understood that this view was common in children, owing to the gifts, but had not expected it in an adult.
Ninety-three days after the third birthday dinner, we were traveling to the nursing home, discussing a genetics paper that Daphne had read the previous day, when it became apparent that she had forgotten some signi๏ฌcant points. It was not the ๏ฌrst time in recent weeks that her memory had been faulty, and I immediately organized an assessment of her cognitive functioning.ย ๎e diagnosis was Alzheimerโs disease.
Daphneโs intellectual capability deteriorated rapidly, and we were soon unable to have our discussions about genetics. But we continued our meals and walks to the nursing home. Daphne now spoke primarily about her past, focusing on her husband and family, and I was able to form a generalized view of what married life could be like. She continued to insist
that I could ๏ฌnd a compatible partner and enjoy the high level of happiness that she had experienced in her own life. Supplementary research con๏ฌrmed that Daphneโs arguments were supported by evidence: married men are happier and live longer.
One day Daphne asked, โWhen will it be my birthday again?โ and I realized that she had lost track of dates. I decided that it would be acceptable to lie in order to maximize her happiness.ย ๎e problem was to source some daphne out of season, but I had unexpected success. I was aware of a geneticist who was working on altering and extending the ๏ฌowering of plants for commercial reasons. He was able to supply my ๏ฌower vendor with some daphne, and we had a simulated birthday dinner. I repeated the procedure each time Daphne asked about her birthday.
Eventually, it was necessary for Daphne to join her husband at the nursing home, and as her memory failed, we celebrated her birthdays more often, until I was visiting her daily.ย ๎e ๏ฌower vendor gave me a special loyalty card. I calculated that Daphne had reached the age of 207, according to the number of birthdays, when she stopped recognizing me, and 319 when she no longer responded to the daphne and I abandoned the visits.
โข โข โข
I did not expect to hear from Julie again. As usual, my assumptions about human behavior were wrong. Two days after the lecture, at 3:37 p.m., my phone rang with an unfamiliar number. Julie left a message asking me to call back, and I deduced that I must have left something behind.
I was wrong again. She wanted to continue our discussion of Aspergerโs syndrome. I was pleased that my input had been so in๏ฌuential. She suggested we meet over dinner, which was not the ideal location for productive discussion, but as I usually eat dinner alone, it would be easy to schedule. Background research was another matter.
โWhat speci๏ฌc topics are you interested in?โ
โOh,โ she said, โI thought we could just talk generally . . . get to know each other a bit.โ
๎is sounded unfocused. โI need at least a broad indication of the subject domain. What did I say that particularly interested you?โ
โOh . . . I guess the stu๏ฌย about the computer testers in Denmark.โ โComputerย applicationsย testers.โ I would de๏ฌnitely need to do some
research. โWhat would you like to know?โ
โI was wondering how they found them. Most adults with Aspergerโs syndrome donโt know they have it.โ
It was a good point. Interviewing random applicants would be a highly ine๏ฌcient way to detect a syndrome that has an estimated prevalence of less than 0.3 percent.
I ventured a guess. โI presume they use a questionnaire as a preliminary ๏ฌlter.โ I had not even ๏ฌnished the sentence when a light went on in my headโnot literally, of course.
A questionnaire! Such an obvious solution. A purpose-built, scienti๏ฌcally valid instrument incorporating current best practice to ๏ฌlter out the time wasters, the disorganized, the ice-cream discriminators, the visual-harassment complainers, the crystal gazers, the horoscope readers, the fashion obsessives, the religious fanatics, the vegans, the sports watchers, the creationists, the smokers, the scienti๏ฌcally illiterate, the homeopaths, leaving, ideally, the perfect partner or, realistically, a manageable short list of candidates.
โDon?โ It was Julie, still on the line. โWhen do you want to get together?โ
๎ings had changed. Priorities had shifted. โItโs not possible,โ I said. โMy schedule is full.โ
I was going to need all available time for the new project.
๎e Wife Project.
